We have just signed with History Press, which will publish a book next year entitled California and the Civil War, based on research for QONM, our multimedia presentation, and our exhibit. The book will contain around 100 period photos, charts, and maps.

The book will also include much of our research on the California Volunteers, including their campaign in New Mexico under Colonel Kit Carson. Good stories abound – including the tale of Satanta, the Kiowa warrior with musical gifts, who countermanded Carson's bugler note for note at the Battle of Adobe Walls!

QONM characters

Here is a link to a video describing the key characters in Queen of the Northern Mines.

Richard re-visits Manhattan for the first time in decades for the awards ceremony!

The election of 1860 de-mystified!

See an excerpt from our multimedia presentation California and the Civil War that explains how Lincoln won California in 1860 – with only 33% of the vote!

Starr King biography

David Briggs provides a biographical sketch of the minster whom Abraham Lincoln dubbed, "The man who saved California for the Union!"

Big Jake lives

A chance meeting in Columbia State Park leads to the discovery of the real Big Jake, QONM's dedicated road agent and homespun philosopher.

As the South breaks away, Californians must make a fateful choice…

Will the Golden State stay with the Union? Will she declare herself a sovereign nation? Or will she split in two, half slave and half free?

A tale of divided loyalties in the Northern Mines of California

At Missouri House, a stagecoach stop in the goldfields of the Sierra Nevada, Ida Hatfield and her mother, Molly, are surrounded by danger as Yankees, Rebels, and outlaws vie to possess the glittering treasure of the Northern Mines. In nearby Nevada City, Will Stafford, a young Virginian attorney, finds California becoming as dear to his heart as his Southern homeland. When the War of Rebellion rages on, his loves and loyalties are put to the ultimate test.

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Nevada City, The Queen of the Northern Mines, was a vibrant community in the 1860's. The story's characters, real and fictional, come from all over the globe. In addition to the central theme of warring Americans, the book tells of Ah Tie, a Chinese mine owner who is denied justice for his two murdered guards; of Peter Kessel, an Austrian musician and absconded revolutionary, who finds an improbable bride in the American wilderness; and of Nutim, a Nisenan Maidu orphan, who plots revenge against the white 'ghost people' who are destroying his tribe.

"In 1860, the ties that bound the Pacific to the Government at Washington were nowhere very strong."

– Asbury Harpending,
Confederate partisan in California

"I do not know what we would do in this great National emergency if it was not for the gold coming from California."

– Ulysses S. Grant,
Lieutenant General USA

For more about the untold story of California during the Civil War, click here.